Patricia Mou

An alternate approach is a non-linear approach. It is premised on the idea that life is full of randomness punctuated by sudden moments – crises and opportunities – with vast potential for meaning making, when our skills and virtues shine.

In this post, we outline our current models for modern-day tribe building. We hope to initiate an exchange on the topic, motivate others to look into this, too, and achieve more together.

There are numerous variations on these simple activities but the original intervention (Emmons and McCullough, 2003) consisted of taking time once per week to reflect upon five things in life that one was grateful for and writing these down, and then repeating this for ten consecutive weeks.

A habit of finding pleasure in thought rather than action is a safeguard against unwisdom and excessive love of power, a means of preserving serenity in misfortune and peace of mind among worries. A life confined to what is personal is likely, sooner or later, to become unbearably painful; it is only by windows into a larger and less fretful cosmos... See more

6. Antifragility. Do not be broken by this chaos and disorder; rather, adopt a mentality that you will benefit from it.

Note that seeking happiness as an end might be counterproductive. Many people report that constantly checking to see if they are happy actually decreases their happiness - a report that fits with the research on "flow." It may be better to seek some of the above goals as ends, and happiness will be a side-effect.

Working together can also be an extremely enriching and sobering experience. It is enriching because people learn, gain traction, motivation and a sense of meaning. It’s sobering because it provides a real-world test to the quality and strength of the coordination fabric your group has been building, stripping away the relative comfort of... See more